


Never Let Me Down

by peacocktails



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Older Man/Younger Woman, au: Luke and the Raddus survives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-19 16:47:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13708557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacocktails/pseuds/peacocktails
Summary: On the Raddus, secrets and boundaries are hard to maintain.





	Never Let Me Down

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snILjFUkk_A  
> Depeche Mode - Never Let me Down Again

On the first night, he had deliberately asked her to tell him what she wanted him to do, rather than letting it come straight through like a comlink. He used that kind of communication only to show her that it was otherwise completely forbidden.  
  
So, over weeks, he'd learnt in a human way (of awkward, deflatory frankness, and trial and error) what she liked. Kisses in profusion: on her cheeks; her neck; her forehead. Whole-body holding, with deep pressure and simple reassurances: that he was here; that he wasn't going to go away; that "it" was going to be alright. Gentle rocking: "like the sea.. I suppose". To be reminded, repeatedly and in a kindly voice, that "you don't have to do this," whenever she offered him her grateful mouth or her hands. Nothing "really sexual": nothing "degrading".  
  
He didn't have to explain to her that there were reasons he had to keep things distant (keep them, actually, on the edge of being trivial). The old Order had been right to point out the threat of obsession and mutual self-absorption that pervaded the intimate territory between Force-sensitives.  
  
There was that, but there was also something else, now, too: she'd begun to push at the boundaries he'd put in place. (And right from the start, he'd expected nothing less of her).  
  
When she was re-dressed and in the doorway, he'd asked if he'd see her again next week (to 'play dejarik'). She'd hesitated, and said, by way of explanation: "I keep thinking about the others."  
  
Meaning the people aboard the Raddus who slept in cramped aerated tubes in the crew's quarters, rather than on a soft white bed-seat in a small room off the General's quarters with the silent stars hanging outside the real window. The people who heard her footsteps on the steel galley floors as she returned to her own capsule in the middle of the night. (She'd insisted on being roomed in a capsule, "just like anyone else".)  
  
Her expression said: _they need comforting as much as I do, if not much more_. And - they wouldn't talk, if any could detect what was going on - and she tried to be absolutely discreet - but what she and him were doing with their spare time now wasn't what was needed for flagging morale.  
  
Not one bit.  
  
_So do you think we should stop_ , he might react. The fleet had counsellors, and a holonet linked to databases full of therapeutic exercises. And she'd agreed, firmly and seemingly happily, that they wouldn't talk too much about these kinds of things ...  
  
He wouldn't respond that way, though.  
  
"I'm no different from anyone here, really," Rey continued quietly. "Not in the ways that should matter." _Why should I be the one singled out for special attention_ , she didn't say out loud. Instead, she laid out that thing hanging unspoken since a fortnight ago: "... I think General Organa knows."  
  
So: "Just don't worry about it," he told her from under the blankets. "You know Leia's always been so much worldlier than me." He rested his cheek on his palm. "Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen her fazed by these kinds of things."  
  
"Really - she's..?" Rey really didn't seem to like to refer to Leia by name. "Not at all?"  
  
The only resentment Luke knew of in his sister - likely the only resentment there was - was over the fate of her husband and her only child. And though it ran deep as a vein, it didn't really branch out where Rey thought it did: Leia knew how lonely his Temple years had been even at the best of times. But: "Is she smart?" she'd caught him out, pinned him down, as soon as they'd gotten alone for a second on the bridge. "Rey. Is she brave?"  
  
"Yes - why?"  
  
"Never mind. That's what I needed to know."  
  
But he didn't want to talk about that. "Not at all," he said.  
  
She clutched at her elbow - thinking, he could tell, about the soldiers who wanted to look up to him, under their layers of cynicism, as some kind of demi-sacred figure. "Rey.." he began. "This is problem guilt. You can see that. Anyone who's been held back by it can see that." It was, but it wasn't the whole truth he might have told her: the truth that this bothered his conscience, too; that this was a feeling she shouldn't just wave away.  
  
She nodded.  
  
"But you won't worry about it, will you?"  
  
"Okay," she capitulated, head turned subtly away and down.  
  
"Okay," he nodded, as she turned to leave. "You sleep well, alright?" They'd be docking at Yavin 4 for the Annual Council of the Resistance, tomorrow, and both of them were scheduled to speak.  
  
"Alright."  She raised her hand to close his door manually, for silence - but for a second, it stuck.

She tugged it again.

But - Luke thought - they had a will of their own, sometimes; didn't they?

Oh well. "It's okay; just leave it," he said with raised fingers.

Rey stepped back towards him, but then paused to gauge her continued welcome.

Luke obliged with a closed-eyed nod. So Rey gave the door one last tug - from the inside - and it co-operated.

Funny, that.  "'Revising our speeches'," he muttered, as at his bedside she briskly undressed, and happily put herself back under the covers beside him. She nodded, snuggling down.

And she never called him simply 'Luke' - even though she knew he wanted her to. But, he supposed, as he turned off the light and examined the constellations in the black, alien sky - that was the way things had to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Edited the ending (sorry! - shouldn't have been so quick to post it)


End file.
